Monkey See, Monkey Do? Deciphering the Structure-Function Relationship in the Fossil Record

April 10, 2017 by Elizabeth Agosto in Evolution, Biomechanics, Phylogenetic modeling, Scientific meetings

An organism’s survival is contingent on the way it moves and interacts with the environment. We can get at the relationship between a living organism’s morphology and the way it moves through direct observation and experimentation. This relationship, however, is more clandestine in fossil organisms. In our last blog post, Ben touched on the use of comparative anatomy to infer the structure-function relationship in the fossil record. In this post, I briefly explore this topic from a historical perspective and discuss its potential for evolutionary analysis.

Shhh, We Can’t Talk About That: Is Mental Health an Academic Taboo?

March 13, 2017 by Angela Mallard in Scientific meetings, Science Communication, Academia, Mental Health, Measurement Theory

There aren’t very many taboo subjects when you’re a scientist. As an anthropologist, at some point I’m likely to have a very serious discussion about body decomposition, lemur poop, primate sperm competition--you name it. As researchers, we’re able to set aside some of our social or personal discomfort in the name of asking relevant scientific questions, and that’s as it should be. Otherwise, we end up ignoring potentially rich bodies of evidence. But there’s at least one topic that we still have some trouble addressing with frankness: our own mental health.

The OVAL at Gastown, the Big Easy & the Windy City this Spring

February 20, 2017 by Benjamin Auerbach in General, Science Communication, Scientific meetings

Members associated with the OVAL at The University of Tennessee will be presenting podium talks and scientific posters at four conferences this March and April. Come hear about our most recent research!